Field of the Invention
This invention relates to women's outer garments, particularly blouses, shirts, dresses or like tops which are particularly suited for use by a breast feeding mother.
A nursing or breast feeding mother, particularly in the early infancy stages, is usually anxious to move from maternity wear into more conventional clothing. However, while a variety of garments have been available specifically designed for breast feeding, these tend to be unattractive. Another consideration is that of exposure of the mother's breast, commonly making breast feeding embarassing to a new mother in public or semi-public situations.
One earlier proposal for a nursing garment which purports to alleviate the breast exposure problem is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,004,294 to Pinch, issued Jan. 25, 1977. This proposal consists in a garment which simulates a conventional blouse or the like with a pair of breast pockets. The pocket portions, however, in fact are flaps which normally cover openings in the blouse, the flaps being secured to the blouse along their bottom edges. The flaps may be raised to cover the respective openings and releasably secured in raised position by loop and pile fasteners or the like, so as to disguise the garment as a conventional blouse, or they may be lowered to expose the wearer's breast for feeding. With this construction, however, to expose the wearer's nipple, it is generally necessary to drop one of the flaps all the way down, uncovering the entire opening that it normally covers, and thereby exposing to view a large part, if not all of the wearer's breast.
It is a particular object of this invention to provide a breast feeding garment which simulates a conventional garment when required, but which can be converted to provide effective access to a wearer's breast for feeding purposes, while exposing a minimum thereof to view.